Well, that about wraps it up for a few things. Wrox’s Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 is a much better book than Beg ASP.NET 1.x even in the draft stage. It’s probably because there was no pressure from Wrox to produce a beta edition of the book. Of course, the text has been written against beta 2 but will be checked against the RTM build before its published. All being well, the major changes occurred between beta 1 and beta 2 but you never can tell. With any luck, a big change will just mean that the book is not quite day and date with Whidbey but who can tell the future. What I know is that this is Wrox’s number one priority ASP.NET 2.0 book and even if it doesn’t match the heady sales of Beg ASP 3, it’ll do better than anything I’ve produced since that book. Hurrah.

Also finished some HowTo work for the Channel9 PAG Security wiki. Geez, talk about your switches from beginner text to deep security. Not sure which was more time consuming - understanding the concepts and features within or trying to set up the VPC scenarios to allow me to test \ write the code that demonstrate those concepts and features. Still - I am most definitely the newbie in that field. But I can already see applications for dotCoop. Which is good, I think.

O’Reilly got back in touch about the Head First C# sampler that Lou and I did over a year ago now. Still don’t have the passion to write this. Even if the advance covered my living for the six months I’d need to plan and write it, there’s no guarantee of sales and I’d have quit a job I’m reasonably fond of that pays better than a book ever would. If I’m going to write anything book-sized again, it’s definitely going to be something I care enough about to not mind the continuous effort it takes to write. Must have a look at the old unused specs I wrote and seeing if anything sparks interest...

James Crowley over at Developer Fusion has been gracious enough to reissue some of my book reviews on his site. AdWes has been on at me to write some more and perhaps a couple of author interviews too. There’s also a chance of pushing out the Culture Shock Diaries elsewhere too. More random writing is required.

I decided not to take on the rewrites of the three Beginning .NET 2.0 Databases books for APress today. Getting first drafts in for PDC in early September and the poor pay (damn that exchange rate) mean that the pride in getting the finished products out at Christmas is not worth the pain it will cause trying to fit writing in around a full time job which I'm currently enjoying. The odd chapter (write, edit or review) here and there is still a possibility but not a full book.

Of course having said this, I'll be made redundant next week, but that's a hurdle to jump when I get there. In the meantime, I intend to enjoy my now freed-up summer

A life sign and a fervent wish that blog editors like this could actually backdate entries at the author’s request. I mean I know when I did stuff, but I just didn’t have time or the inclination to write them down. Does that make me a bad blogger? I don’t think so. Roughly in order then, I’ve

• Been to my cousin’s engagement party
• Witnessed the film project I crewed finally finished and on the big screen
• Been invited to work in pre-production on a new feature film project with the same team
• Written the rest of the first draft of DIDA after much humming and hawing
• Been delighted to note that even though I haven’t got a copy yet, people are actually buying copies of Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 With C#. Which means at some point I’ll get some royalties. Which is a first.
• Saw Pink at the Manchester Arena. Not my first choice of gig and her first go at designing a stadium show but they were filming the DVD of the show there which made it more fun.
• Decided where my fiancée and I will be married and where we’ll be living
• Had my remaining grandfather die and read the lesson at his funeral. But he did ask to have Louis Armstrong playing When The Saints Go Marching In to end the ceremony. How upbeat cool is that. I also learnt that he was the ground engineer to give concorde the okay before it took off for the very first time back in 1976. Wow.
• Worked at my ninth National Student Drama Festival as a staff member for the festival newsletter. It’s turning into more of a magazine these days. 36 pages of content a day in ten hours flat. I’m not sure how we do it and lots of other festivals are very impressed too.
• Decided how to go about redrafting DIDA after a trip to Newcastle. Some good changes in there. This will be an awesome book.
• Done some more work on GotDotBooks. Looks like we’ll be prototyping it in Whidbey after all.

So as you can see, it’s been a busy month.

I’ve been quiet a bit quiet for the past six weeks or so. No excuses really, so here’s what’s been going on.

• SAMS are releasing an in-depth ASP.NET Techniques by Al Homer and others. I’ve been tech reviewing that.
• I am now an INETA volunteer and start on a new project for them this month using Whidbey bits. Which is nice.
• More book reviews for .NET Developers Journal
• The week before Christmas, I got a call from Wiley who needed a couple of chapters of Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 translated from VB.NET to C#. The father of one of the authors had taken ill, so he needed a cover. One week’s work and I’m now part of the most successful ASP.NET book series in history. Jolly good. Apparently, it will hit the shelves on March 6.
• On New Year’s Eve, I got confirmation from APress that my beginning databases book is go. Currently, it’s called Dive Into Databases with ASP.NET 1.1, or DIDA for short. Of course, APress haven’t updated their entry for it yet...
• A few small things for O’Reilly which may bloom into something later.

Oh yes, and then there was Christmas, large amounts of alcohol and a complete update for the rest of the site too.